Queen Victoria's Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe

Description

A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted most international power and influence: her role as matchmaking grandmother. In the late nineteenth century, Queen Victoria had over thirty surviving grandchildren. To maintain power in Europe, she hoped to manoeuvre them into dynastic marriages with royalty across the world. Yet her grandchildren often had plans of their own, fuelled by strong wills and romantic hearts. Her matchmaking plans were further complicated by tumultuous international upheavals; revolution was in the air and after her death, her most carefully laid plans fell to ruin. Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering palaces of Russia and Europe, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions, to enthralling effect. It is at once an intimate portrait of the royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the power, love and duty that shaped the marriages that Queen Victoria arranged. At the heart of it all is Queen Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined manipulator the next.

Deborah Cadbury is the author of eight acclaimed books including Chocolate Wars, The Dinosaur Hunters, The Lost King of France, The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, for which her accompanying BBC series received a BAFTA nomination, and Princes at War. Before turning to writing full time she worked for thirty years as a BBC TV producer and executive producer and has won numerous international awards including an Emmy. She lives in London.

Wonderfully compelling and packed with new material - a gripping story beautifully told -- Jane Ridley Cadbury is an adroit storyteller. Her lively, colourfully written book, Queen Victoria's Matchmaking, recounts the courtships and marriages of a handful of the Queen's grandchildren ... a panoramic family saga, its players by turns pragmatic and romantic, wilful, dutiful, misguided and, occasionally, tragic ... Cadbury writes with verve -- Matthew Dennison * Daily Telegraph * [An] absorbing book ... The fall of the Romanovs occupies the superb last pages of Cadbury's book ... Dynastic mergers, we may deduce from Deborah Cadbury's account, offer no defence against the whims of history. This catastrophe-laced slice of royal history offers a ripping read -- Miranda Seymour * Observer * Engrossing ... Cadbury engagingly presents [Queen Victoria] as a mesmerising Mrs Bennet, summoning her children and then her grandchildren to Balmoral ... The stories of [Queen Victoria's] descendants are mesmerising and often stranger than fiction ... From the pen of a writer of skill and style, this surprising narrative leaves you wanting more -- Paula Byrne * The Times * A skilfully woven account -- Stephan Halliday * Times Higher Education Supplement * Cadbury's account of Victoria's attempts to bend her unruly grandchildren to her matrimonial will is the stuff of melodrama ... covered with verve and insight by Deborah Cadbury in her new history -- Daisy Goodwin * Sunday Times * An entertaining, well-written and well-conceived book ... perceptive and revealing in the light it throws on the mind and attitudes of Victoria. Cadbury has consulted sources in numerous archives, including the Royal Archives at Windsor, and has chosen her quotations with skill * Literary Review * In this enjoyable story for fans of royal machinations, Cadbury ably shows not just the successes, but also the damage inflicted by Victoria's single-mindedness. An instructive European history * Kirkus * Impeccably researched, and written with all the brio and understanding of a major historical novel, Princes at War takes us intimately and even shockingly into the human dynamics of a barely functional family at the time of our greatest peril -- Praise for 'Princes at War', David Kynaston, author of 'Austerity Britain' One of the most riveting tales of the nonfiction season, rendered with novelistic drama but deliberate detachment. The inner tensions of the palace during wartime and the inner tensions of a remarkable family make for one of the best, and ultimately most uplifting, stories of the war years -- Praise for 'Princes at War' * Boston Globe * A moving and deeply researched account ... Her story is gripping, illuminating and generous in its recognition of the central, dramatic role of the monarchy in Britain's finest years -- Praise for 'Princes at War', William Shawcross Deborah Cadbury combines the family drama against the backdrop of the war with terrific narrative verve -- Praise for 'Princes at War', Daisy Goodwin * The Times * Fascinating, fresh insights into a story of four brothers -- Praise for 'Princes at War', Stephen Halliday * Times Higher Education Supplement *